Queen's Progress Read online

  ‘Can you draw?’

  ‘Er … well, after a fashion.’

  ‘How about carpentry? Can you knock a nail in, Master Norfolk?’

  ‘I should think so.’

  Marlowe was not impressed. Tom Sledd could conjure up a royal palace or a cathedral or a sepulchre with a few deft strokes of a brush. He could build them, too, with hammers and chisels, saws, and language that would make a harlot blush. On the other hand, Marlowe reflected, he just may owe Jack Norfolk his life. And Cecil may have been right. Perhaps he did need five stout lads, perhaps even ten. Sending Tom Sledd back to report to Whitehall was an inconvenience, but he could hardly send Norfolk to the heart of government on covert business. A third pair of hands to plot masques in such a situation might be useful.

  ‘You’ll have to travel as my man,’ Marlowe said. ‘You’ll sleep with the servants, with the hogs if you have to; some of our hosts will not be generous – with the cost of entertaining the Queen on their shoulders already. You’ll get board and lodgings and three pence a day. And, if I have need of your sword …’

  ‘It’s yours,’ Norfolk said, ‘and the arm behind it.’

  He held out his hand. ‘I’m grateful, Master Marlowe,’ he said. Marlowe took it. ‘Better make that Kit, Jack,’ he said, ‘when we’re alone, of course.’

  Master Sackerson was laid out in a patch of sunshine, his belly sprinkled with sparse hair warming nicely. Every now and then, he gave a happy grunt and scratched himself voluptuously. Tom Sledd leaned over the wall of the Bear Pit and smiled down at the creature. What a life! Food, shelter, and love of a sort, from Philip Henslowe and everyone who knew him. He had claws but no teeth, huge muscles but a pleasant disposition; the world could do with more like Master Sackerson, thought the stage manager as he peeled himself away from the low wall and walked up the remaining slope to the wicket door of the Rose. He had only been away a few days, but it already seemed like a lifetime. He drew a deep breath and, pushing the door, walked into the fug of sawdust and hoof-glue, with a faint overlay of yesterday’s audience and Ned Alleyn’s perfume, a gift from an anonymous but grateful patron. Had he known the patron in question was one Oswyn Gasper of Clench Alley at the back of the theatre, he may have worn it with less panache, but it was hard to tell; Tom Sledd, who knew the donor well, smirked at the waft of it that entered his nostrils. It was good to be back.

  He followed the sound of voices to the rooms at the back of the stage. Apart from Alleyn and Burbage when he got in quickly enough, all of the other actors, minor principals as well as walking gentlemen, shared the one large space with each other and the costumes for the current play and those past. Not many costumes survived intact from one production to another; Philip Henslowe was far too pernickety for that, checking every farthing spent with as much care as he counted every farthing taken on the door. But, as Marlowe had been heard to say on more than one occasion, the play was indeed the thing, so scissors and needles flew almost constantly as the seamstresses ruined their eyesight conjuring wonders from canvas, paint and a carefully positioned glass jewel by the light of guttering candles. Fortunately, as Marlowe was also wont to say, the audiences had the average intelligence of a sleeping baboon, so they wouldn’t notice what the actors wore. The seamstresses pretended not to hear. In any case, for most of them, this wasn’t their principal means of support, so Christopher Marlowe, for all his flashing eye and soft lip, could go and do whatever he liked to himself or indeed any member of his family, for all they cared.

  If Tom Sledd had expected an ecstatic welcome, he would have been sorely disappointed. A few heads turned but, other than that, there was no discernible change in the level of conversation. Most of them, had they been asked, hadn’t even noticed he had been away. He was always busy, always in the theatre, morning, noon and night, but rarely in one spot for long. It was therefore very easy for an actor, carpenter or other sundry Rose denizen to go for weeks without knowingly clapping eyes on the man.

  Finally, someone noticed he was there and strolled over.

  ‘Thomas.’ Will Shaxsper clapped the man on the shoulder. ‘You look puzzled. Can I help?’

  ‘I … puzzled?’

  ‘Well … let’s say, a little dawcocked, then.’

  Tom Sledd looked at the Warwickshire man a little askance. Was it just his three-day absence, or had the man’s head grown even bigger, the brow more cliff-like, the petulant mouth more tucked and twisted under his little beard? He had certainly grown rather stranger in his behaviour, that was certain. ‘What? I have no idea what that might mean.’

  Shaxsper was discomfited and not a little annoyed. He had expected more from Sledd. ‘Dawcocked. As in jackdaw. Idiot. Stupid fellow. It means puzzled, confused, perplexed, befuddled …’

  Sledd was in no mood for wordplay. ‘I know all the other words. I just have never heard … what was it again?’

  ‘Dawcocked. It is a word I have coined myself. I sometimes think we put too much store by the old, well-known words and phrases which our grandfathers used. It amuses me to make up new ones.’ The polished dome of his head reflected the candles of the toiling women and gave a rather mad glint to his eye.

  Sledd edged away just an inch or two. ‘Well, Will, that sounds fascinating. But I’m only here for an hour or so, just checking everything is well until I get on my way again.’

  Shaxsper decided not to take offence at Sledd’s obvious lack of interest. After all, this man had influence with Henslowe and Marlowe and an actor and incipient playwright couldn’t have too many friends with influence. He arranged his features into an interested and matey smile. ‘Have you been away?’ he said. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘No,’ sighed the stage manager. ‘You and everyone else. I’ve been on the road with Kit, planning some masques for the Queen’s Progress.’

  Suddenly, heads swivelled on shoulders, eyes flashed, mouths smiled. The Queen’s Progress? Now that was something worth listening to.

  ‘Except, of course,’ Sledd lowered his voice, ‘I can’t tell you where or when, exactly. But, that’s where I’ve been. And you’ll never guess who I met this very morning.’

  Shaxsper put a proprietorial arm around the stage manager’s shoulder. The rest of the room retuned their ears to their conversation but resumed their nonversations with each other. There were some things more important than wagers and seduction, after all. ‘By Royal Appointment’ ranked among them. Even an argument about who had more lines in Act Four could easily wait a while. ‘If you need any help, Thomas,’ he purred, ignoring Sledd’s last sentence, ‘any help at all, just ask me and I will be there. Where is there, by the way?’

  ‘As I said,’ and Sledd shrugged off the arm, ‘I can’t possibly tell you. But if I get … what was that word again?’

  ‘What word?’ Shaxsper had so many spinning in his head, how was he supposed to remember just one?’

  ‘Doorstepped. Is that it?’

  ‘Oh! Dawcocked. Ha ha, yes. I see what you did there.’

  ‘I think we’ll manage, Will, if I’m honest. Most of the hosts have some … let’s just say some very definite ideas about what they want. Nymphs. Fountains. Things of that nature.’

  ‘I can do nymphs!’ Shaxsper was clutching at straws. ‘And shepherds.’

  ‘I’m sure you can, Will.’ Sledd patted his arm. ‘I’m sure you can. But for now, I need to see Master Henslowe and then go home for a while. Don’t forget, Meg and I have a new baby on the way and I need—’

  ‘How many is that now?

  ‘Just the two. Well, one and three-quarters, I suppose I should say.’

  Shaxsper looked wise. ‘We thought that when Anne was expecting our second.’

  Tom Sledd waited for the rest of the sentence. He had definitely detected a significant pause.

  ‘Twins,’ Shaxsper said, in sepulchral tones. ‘Things were never the same after that, if you follow my drift.’ He looked up to the ceiling, blinking back tears. ‘I miss them, sometimes. E
specially Hamnet, my boy.’ He put a sentimental arm across Sledd’s shoulders again and, for the sake of paternal comradeship, Sledd let it stay. ‘There’s nothing like a son, Thomas,’ the man from Warwickshire said, fighting a sob. ‘Nothing like it.’

  ‘We’ll be pleased with either,’ Sledd said, embarrassed. ‘As long as it’s healthy.’ Shaxsper showed no sign of either cheering up or removing his arm. In fact, he had gone a stage further and had now turned his enormous brow into the crook of his arm and was weeping openly on Sledd’s shoulder. Heads were turning and Sledd could see people slipping out of doors and away into the shadows. Shaxsper in paternal mood could be very trying. Soon, the two were alone and only Burbage, the usual recipient of Shaxsper’s weeping, had patted Sledd on his unencumbered shoulder in silent understanding.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sledd had muttered to the actor’s retreating back, ‘Dick.’ He absently patted the by now inconsolable actor/playwright on his back, muttering ‘Ssshhh, there, there …’ If nothing else, it was good practice for when the baby or babies arrived.

  He was still there when Philip Henslowe came in on a wave of financial crisis, as he always did, an imaginary army of creditors in his wake.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ he yelled. ‘I don’t pay you to … ah.’ He backed out, ignoring Sledd’s rolling eye. ‘I’ll … nice to see you, Thomas, I just need … yes …’

  And he was gone.

  Eventually, Will Shaxsper stopped weeping. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose on a piece of hanging fabric Tom Sledd could only hope did not form part of his own clothing. He didn’t want to know, so kept his hand from his sleeve cuff as he walked, happy to be going back to his Meg at last, along the side of the Thames. Summer was just around the corner and the smell of the river reinforced the message of the green buds and blossom, which shed its petals in white drifts from the May trees lining his path. The new father-to-be whistled as he walked and swiped at the weeds sprouting from the wall on his right with a careless hand. He could grow to like this life; half the time wandering the countryside and the other half in London. The best of both worlds indeed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone approaching, and he instinctively stepped aside. He was no coward, but in London he had seen it proved time and time again that discretion was indeed the better part of valour. He looked down at his feet and kept walking, increasing his pace just a threat.

  ‘Tom?’ a voice said. ‘Tom Sledd? Is that you?’

  He looked up. After his less than overwhelming welcome at the theatre, it was good to hear someone pleased to see him.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ the man said. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages.’

  Sledd thought fast. He knew the man before him, but bearing in mind his business, he wasn’t sure whether to admit it. And yet, here and large as life, was Nicholas Faunt, spy extraordinary, greeting him like a long-lost brother. He decided to be friendly; you could never tell with someone as sneaky as Faunt quite what might be in his mind. ‘Master Faunt!’ he cried, with every semblance of surprised delight. ‘How are you?’

  Faunt shrugged and looked rueful. ‘Well, since Sir Francis …’

  Tom Sledd was instantly contrite. Of course! Nicholas Faunt had been banished, or as near as made no nevermind, once Robert Cecil had come to power. ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry …’

  ‘No, no,’ Faunt turned and fell into step with him. ‘I do a little here, a little there, you know. And …’ he gave a chuckle, ‘a rich wife doesn’t hurt, either. Though I do have to—’ he lowered his voice to a man-of-the-world whisper – ‘behave myself a little more than I used to.’ He gave Sledd a nudge in the ribs. ‘But I’m sure you know how that works, being a theatre man and all.’

  The stage manager laughed. ‘Oh, yes, indeed.’ He wondered whether the spy was actually as bright as he had always supposed. Didn’t he know all the women on stage were boys, in various stages of adolescence? If he didn’t, they deserved rather more pats on the back than they routinely got, for jobs well done.

  They walked in silence for a few more paces. ‘So … how is Kit?’ Faunt turned a dazzling smile on Sledd. He didn’t smile often but, when he did, it was reminiscent of a crocodile on a sun-baked bank somewhere far, far away.

  ‘I’ve just been travelling with him, since you ask,’ Sledd said. He knew it was not meant to be gossiped about, but surely Nicholas Faunt was exempt.

  ‘Have you?’ Faunt slapped his own thigh with excitement. ‘How wonderful. How is he?’

  ‘He’s well, very busy, but you know Master Marlowe.’ Tom thought he should keep this conversation a little more formal. ‘Writing, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Writing … of course. Anything else, at all?’

  Sledd slipped down the bank a little without even realizing how near to the smiling jaws he had got. ‘Planning some masques, for the Queen. Exciting, really. I’m helping him with the stages, that kind of thing.’

  Faunt spread his arms. ‘And yet here you are, in London.’

  ‘It’s funny you should say that,’ Sledd said, ‘but we hit on tragedy almost at once.’

  Faunt’s face was now a picture of concern. ‘Tragedy? Not personal, I hope.’

  ‘No, no,’ Sledd was quick to reassure him. ‘No, it was all to do with the family we were visiting …’ and slowly, painlessly, but completely, the crocodile ate Tom Sledd and his story and left not fin nor fur nor feather behind to tell the tale.

  FIVE

  They hanged men at Tyburn and had been doing it there for twenty years by the time Tom Sledd rode below the fatal tree. The stream had slowed to a crawl in this driest of springs and the reeds along its banks stood parched at the topmost ends, their mud-caked roots showing above the water. Today was not a hanging day, or Sledd could not have got himself or his horse as close to the tree as he had. It was still early morning and the ducks, still hoping for water to paddle in, were just stirring with the dawn. The dabchicks muddled in the trodden mud at the edge of the sluggish water, and Tom Sledd, still only a father of one, smiled to watch the babies aping their parents in the constant search for food.

  There was no one about at first. Then a solitary milkmaid came tripping across the yellow grass from the fields to the west. Unless she was a mistress of disguise, she was not Leonard Lyttleburye. Sledd told himself he would wait for ten more minutes, and if Cecil’s man did not show up, he would ride south without him. The girl bobbed under her yoke to Sledd, who, his Meg notwithstanding, was a fool for a pretty face and a well-turned ankle.

  ‘Keep your mind on the job, now, Master Sledd.’

  The voice made him turn so fast that he almost fell out of the saddle. A huge man, with a beard and hair to his shoulders, stood next to Sledd’s horse, patting the animal’s muzzle.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ Sledd managed to keep his voice down to a manly pitch.

  ‘Under a gooseberry bush, my grandame told me. ’Course, the truth is a bit more complicated. I’m Leonard Lyttleburye.’ He thrust a giant hand in Sledd’s general direction and the stage manager winced as he took it.

  ‘I thought you’d be … smaller,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t let my size fool you, Master Sledd,’ the giant said. His voice was pitched so low that it made ripples appear on the murky water. ‘As I’ve just proved, I can blend for England.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sledd tried to smile, shaking some feeling back into his hand. ‘I think blending is vital for what we had in mind.’ He crouched low in the saddle. ‘What did Sir Robert tell you, about the matter in hand, I mean?’

  ‘Only that I was to take my orders from Master Marlowe. And, failing that, you.’

  Sledd straightened. He liked the sound of that. He was Tom Sledd, for God’s sake, stage manager at the Rose. The great playwright Christopher Marlowe called him friend. The great actor Ned Alleyn likewise. The great impresario Philip Henslowe called him … quite often. And, only yesterday, he had sat in Her Majesty’s Palace of Whitehall, hobnobbing with Her Majesty’s Spymaster. Of co
urse, Leonard Lyttleburye took orders from him. It was simply proof of Sledd’s impending greatness – the first step on a Jacob’s ladder to fame and fortune.

  ‘Have you a horse?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Lyttleburye grinned. Then the grin vanished. ‘Now, where did I leave it?’

  The woman had tears in her eyes and she gripped Kit Marlowe’s arm with determined, talon-like fingers. ‘I can’t tell you,’ she sobbed, her words coming in choking gasps, ‘I can’t tell you what an honour this is. The Queen, God bless her, coming to stay under my roof. Mine.’ Although she was only a tiny little thing, she had a grip like death. Marlowe could feel the sensation going in several of his fingers. He could look down on the crown of her head with room to spare, and yet he still couldn’t undo her clutches. She was like a fragile bird, with jerky movements and a delicate face with large, frantic eyes; not a linnet in a cage, or a nightingale or wren, but more one of the smaller raptors – a merlin, possibly. She even had a pronounced overbite; it was uncanny.

  ‘Actually, mine, Mrs B.,’ the bear of a man behind her muttered, ‘but let’s not fall out over it. Where are you from, Marlowe?’ The man was as huge as his wife was tiny, but for all his size he moved with ease and grace. He was so full of life that his hair and beard almost seemed to crack with an electric force and being near him was like riding the lightning.

  ‘Originally, my lord,’ Marlowe was delighted to be able to extricate himself from the woman, ‘Canterbury. Currently, I lodge in Hog Lane, Norton Folgate.’

  ‘Hog Lane?’ the woman had grabbed his forearm again, looking up into his face. ‘Anthony,’ she turned back to her husband, ‘Hog Lane. What a coincidence. Oh, it was meant to be!’ She looked to Heaven and clapped her hands, releasing Marlowe yet again from her clutches.

  ‘My sister-in-law owns property in Hog Lane, Marlowe,’ Anthony Montague grunted. A lackey was buckling his left arm into a harness for the tilt and it wasn’t going well. ‘Gently, Bennett, that’s my shield arm.’